


As One

by neveroffanon



Series: addicts and broken things [4]
Category: Good Girls (TV)
Genre: F/M, Gen, Missing scenes in between 2.11 and 2.12, Rio is still a hardass though, Ruby deserves all the things, rio and beth need to use their words
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-18
Updated: 2019-05-18
Packaged: 2020-03-07 08:55:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,412
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18869917
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/neveroffanon/pseuds/neveroffanon
Summary: Ruby and Rio have a little chat before the girls go grab Mary Pat.ORThat time Rio gets confirmation that there really is a method to Elizabeth’s madness.





	As One

“Tell me somethin.”

Ruby stared out over the field where Harry swung upside down from the monkey bars, avoiding the eyes of the man beside her.  Well, he might not have been looking anyway.  He only ever looked at Beth, really looked.  The most she and Annie rated was the whipcrack lash of his eyes before he looked away.  And she praised the good Lord for that.  There was enough trouble in her world without gangfriend getting all up in her business.

She felt him turn a little toward her, and glanced at him from the corner of her eye.  “You and Elizabeth go way back, yeah.”

Ruby turned to look at him, knowing her face was going on a journey, but unable to stop it.  She could hear the record scratching in her ears. This was not what she’d expected for him to start talking about.  She’d been afraid that he knew about the money she’d used to pay the lawyer, and he was getting ready to go in and rip her up one side and down the other.

“Yes?”  She replied, swallowed and repeated herself, stronger.  “Yes.  We’ve been together since we were kids.  Me, Beth, and Annie,” she paused, then curiosity got the better of her caution.  “Why?”

“This life ain’t for you.  Was wondering why you stay,” he faced her fully then, legs crossed at the knee, eyes narrowed, and it was all Ruby could do to suppress her shudder and keep from drawing back.  Looking at him full on, she was reminded that this was the same man who’d shot Dean in the chest.  She hesitated, torn between keeping her business private and wondering if this was a way out of the debt he’d laid on them.  

“My daughter... she would’ve died.  She _was_ dying, in front of me.  A little at a time, every day.  She couldn’t go to school without lugging an oxygen tank, she couldn’t walk, she couldn’t hardly eat, she couldn’t play with Harry,” Ruby jerked her chin over at Harry, who was chattering at another boy with brown hair, a million-watt grin, and a missing tooth.  She squinted, and then tilted her head to look at the man beside her.  It was gangfriend’s son again.  

“They’re why I got in, and they’re why I’m still here... them and Beth and Annie.”

“Your man, though, he got pulled up on charges, right?  The feds was talking to him.  And now he's getting sued.  So where’s that put you?”  He pulled his phone from a pocket, gaze lingering on hers for a moment, before he looked down and started swiping at the screen.  

“How do you know this stuff?” Ruby stared at him, tension tightening her shoulders.  “Wait, no I know the answer— home court advantage.”  He glanced up, lips curled in a smile, and then down at the phone.

“We have a lawyer—,” she began to reply, and he cut her off.  

“Yeah no.  I know that.  But are you in this, or you trying to leave for real?  Cause I don’t have no more time for you and your crew to play.”

“Doesn’t seem like there’s much of a choice, is there?” Ruby tried to keep the frustration out of her voice, but judging by the way he looked up at her and set the phone back into his pocket, she failed.  She stuttered a little, but went on, “I mean, me and Annie messed up the drop, so we owe you for that.  And whatever is going on with you and Beth, I don’t even know if I want to know what’s happening there.  But it seems to me like you have us backed into a corner.”

“Yeah... and the last time you three got scared, you played snitch.  Shit is about to get real, and I need to know if you mean to do it again.”

Ruby raised her eyebrows, and looked away over at Harry and the little boy.  They were on top of the monkey bars, cackling like demons, feet swinging over the edges.  “We didn’t,” she sighed and started over.  “We thought you were going to kill us.  We know better now.”

A low _hmm_  was her only reply for a long moment.  “Does she?”

Ruby snorted and tried to turn it into something that was less obviously a laugh.  “Look, this really isn’t my business, but I think if you want Beth to trust you, maybe you should stop with the Hannibal mail.  It’s hard for a girl to feel the love when her crush is sending her body parts instead of flowers.”

“She told you bout that?” 

“I’ve known her almost all her life.  She tells me everything,” Ruby replied.  She peered at him, and decided to be a little nosier.  “Beth even told me why she decided to get out.”

“Is that right?”  He shifted away, planting both feet on the ground.  “Don’t really matter though.  She owes me money, so she’s in til she pays it back.”

“Uh-huh,” Ruby gave him a little side-eye.  He sounded like a kid throwing a tantrum.  “Well, you know they say the devil is in the details.  Maybe if you want to be sure she’s really in and isn’t gonna bust your ass again, despite the blackmail, you should listen to what I have to say.”

Silence was all the response she got, but Ruby took it for a win.  “Dean took the kids to his mother’s, no warning, with a little ultimatum.  Him or us,” Ruby sighed.  Dean was a manipulative little asshole, when he set his mind to it.  The worst part was that you could never tell when he was going to lose his mind and snap.  “The him was you, by the way.  The us, was the kids.  Of course, now it’s all pointless, since he served her divorce papers anyway.”

“Excuse me?”  He turned to face her so quickly, the bench rocked.  

“Dean asked Beth for a divorce.  She signed the papers already.  Now they gotta do up the assets and figure out how to handle custody of the kids,” Ruby watched him for a moment.  He was ticked, jaw working and lips pressed so tight they were turning colors.

“Why do you care anyway?” Ruby asked, remembering the cute girl with the natural hair. Beth had been, was probably still smarting over that.  Ruby was still smarting too.  Beth sure could pick ‘em.  “You scratched your itch, didn’t you?  Got the white girl in bed, well, in the bathroom which is just real classy, laughed it up with your buddies, and went back to your other side pieces.  Right?”

He blinked, slow, sucked a lip between his teeth and sat silent.  Ruby looked back at him and then away.  She wasn’t trying to get into a staring contest with gangfriend.  And she didn’t need her heart to start thundering in her chest either from stress either.  

“When you and them gonna go get your rotten egg?”

The subject change was so blatant; he may as well have been screaming.  Ruby slanted a look at him, but thought she’d risked getting her head ripped off her shoulders enough for one day.  “Just waiting for Annie to get done with her shift and then we’re going to track her down.  She has a church thing this afternoon.”

“Good,” he rose, loomed over her for long minute, then gave her his back.  He strode off toward the monkey bars, calling something to his son.  The little boy grinned again, almost as cute as Harry, and wriggled down from the top of the monkey bars into his father’s arms.  He waved, and Harry did too.  

Ruby stood slowly, pressed a hand to her chest. Talking to Rio was a trip, of the worst kind.  Beth could stand it, but she’d always been the weirdest of them.  Annie was normal by comparison.  

But Beth had been right.  Rio was checking on them, keeping tabs on them.  Whatever was about to go down for him, he needed them to keep their mouths shut, and in his mind she was the weakest link, with Stan and all.  She didn’t know if she should thank God that he didn’t seem to know what they were planning, but she said a little one anyway as she walked toward Harry that he wouldn’t find about Annie’s fuckup with Noah til it was too late for him to do anything about it.


End file.
